Milo, a 15-year-old transgender boy, gets special birthday pancakes every year from his parents.
Milo shared photographs of this special tradition over the years on his Tumblr, hoping to inspire anyone struggling with their own identity.
With the photos he added this message:
"Some little girls aren't little girls, it just takes us a while to realize it."
"I came out to my family last year as transgender, and in doing so saved my life."
"If you can't tell from the picture, 14 was a bad year for me. For every kid feeling like I was, please just wait, just wait cause one day you'll realize just how worth it the wait was."
"I know everyone says it, but it's true, it will get better, just please stick around so you can see it come true."
The "pancake post" has over 160,000 notes since being posted two days ago.
Update: BuzzFeed News spoke with Milo about his decision to share such a personal message. He said:
I knew tumblr was a positive environment for kids like me, and I thought it would be helpful to some people to hear my story. After all the really bad stuff thats been happening in the transgender community, I think we needed a little positivity. I hope that [trans kids] really understand the message of 'don't give up' that I was trying to get across. Being a trans teen is awful, and a lot of kids don't live long enough to make it out of their teen years. So I guess I was hoping that more trans kids would start being excited for the future too.
His only advice to parents of trans kids? "Support them without a second doubt."
"Buy them new clothes, respect name changes – parents are the biggest influence no matter what anyone says. Just be positive, please."